Planning for: All Faith Inter-religious Association

and All Faith Garden Park

Goals: A pleasant walk through gardens and woods, religious statuary in outdoor settings, books on the subject of religion and mutual respect and mutual understanding among different religions, religious groups and organizations.

Purpose:

To promote greater understanding of religions and religious ideas.

To promote learning about religion among people of all faiths.

To encourage a person of any religious heritage to increase their knowledge of other religions and religious history.

To provide, produce and or sell reading material and other media in order to increase mutual understanding among religious groups and religious persons, and to promote mutual respect and cooperation among religious groups and religious persons.

To create and maintain one or more garden parks to provide an inspirational outdoor recreational experience including gardens, walking paths, and statuary representing the images, ideas, histories, gods, goddesses and historical founders and teachers of the world's religions.

Five founding doctrines and policies:

The Individual in the Universe:

Great Spirit, your world is an anthill and I am an ant. Although I am very small, what I do today is the universe unfolding.

Finding your religion:

You inherited a set of religious beliefs from your parents. When you grow and develop your own thoughts, you may modify or discard beliefs or doctrines from your religious heritage. As you go through this natural process, you are not betraying your religion or your parents. You are not "losing" your religion; you are finding your religion. You do not dishonor your parents by discarding or changing old beliefs. That which is alive changes. They had to live in their world; you have to live in your world. You honor your parents and their religion by being honest and by practicing the highest ethical standards you know. Their religion was a blessing given to you; you are the blessing given to them. Your religion is not lost; it is a treasure discovered by you when you were seeking as well as when you were just living.

Inter-religious respect, understanding, cooperation:

It is taught in the Christian Gospel message that all persons are to be judged or evaluated according to conduct, by a universal standard of ethical goals and expectations. According to the Gospel message as well as the teachings of many other religions, there is no "salvation by membership." No one is saved morally or spiritually by membership in a particular group or institution. Christians are obligated to learn about other religions in order to be reconciled to their brothers and sisters both near and far. This is taught throughout the Gospel message but in particular in the passage where Jesus advises his disciples to settle all disputes with one's neighbors before bringing sacrificial gifts to the altar of God at the place of prayer and worship (Matthew 5: 23-26).

World Peace begins with a first pre-requisite step:

Although there are many respectable and worthwhile efforts to mediate the world's conflicts without violence, including university studies and a wide range of scholarship on the psychological and sociological meaning of peace, we must take a specific first step in order to be able to proceed toward creation of a world of peace and good will toward all people. Even the many treaties and summit meetings among the nations of the world cannot create world peace without the first, required step. That first pre-requisite step for world peace is that all teachers of religion must agree that it is against the rules to teach that God supports war, or any particular war or that God wants us to kill bad people or kill any people because they have the wrong beliefs. It must be agreed among all religions that claim a knowledge of or faith in God that God never recommends or commands the killing of other people. Those who find reason to participate in the combat of war or any similar violence toward other people or property, whether offensive or defensive, must accept that the violent conflict is occurring because people desire it, not because God desires it. Any people who engage in violence shall not make the claim that the violence is sanctioned or commanded by God. It is of the greatest importance to understand that this doctrine is offered as a scientific statement as well as a religious belief. The founders of All Faith Inter-religious Association and All Faith Garden Park believe and recommend that world peace is impossible and shall continue to be impossible so long as people are allowed to teach that God commands or sanctions violence against others. If this first step is not taken, all other efforts to promote world peace will fail.

Scientific Religionism:

To promote the attitude of scientific religionism, which means to attach the greatest importance to religion as a source of understanding of the human condition, and to employ the scientific method to study religion and to formulate, categorize and organize religious ideas and concepts in the field of religion.